After a screening in Sofia, Bulgaria, the feedback from the majority of the audience was that of discontent. We had expected a digestible crime story with enough clues provided to reconstruct the events and uncover the mystery. The film provides no such satisfaction. The female protagonist whose life is shattered has to reconstruct reality with the help of two others. The men are missing. A clue appears to be poetry, but we're never given a translation of a poem, nor do we get to hear what the authorities' verdict on the absent man is, as uttered to his father. Women are those who remain, and they have to be amazingly resourceful. The "Wind of change" (the song plays in the background) comes to the heroine who relishes the first taste of freedom with the innocence of a child; others have already "manned up" and weathered the forefront of oppression.
All this occurred to me post-factum; and I read,
"During the 1979 revolution, Iranians from all walks of life, whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian, socialist, or atheist, fought side-by-side to end one tyrannical regime, only to find themselves in the clutches of another. When Khomeini came to power, freedom of the press was eliminated, religious tolerance disappeared, women's rights narrowed to fit within a conservative interpretation of the Quran, and non-Islamic music and literature were banned. Poets, writers, and artists were driven deep underground and, in many cases, out of the country altogether."
Furthermore, the absent man's name is Said. And we read, "SAID was a native of Iran who lived in Germany since 1965. He published eight volumes of poetry, as well as several collections of essays, children's books, and radio plays. Titles appearing in English include Landscapes of a Distant Mother and Psalms."
Shattered men, shattered women, society slain, empty places.
The poetry line, a clue in the form of a painting, reads "My pieces in your empty place". "In Persian, 'Wish you were here' is 'jay-e shoma khalist' which means 'your place is empty'."
